IEP Meeting

Today is Dylan's IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting at St Gerard's. Met with Ms Vasugi (principal), Francis (main teacher of Early Intervention Class), Mr Vasu (Speech therapist), & Bimal Rai (Ed/ Psychologist) to discuss Dylan's goals for the period of Oct 07 to Mar 08.

Very proud to hear Dylan showing greater interest in teachers & kids, gentleness & affection in approaching his classmates, and being interested in circle time, eg when a picture has become out of sight as the teacher leading the circle time shows it to some other kids, he leans over to look. Overall, he's able to focus and complete individual tasks, but more easily distrated in group setting.

Learnt about play therapy at the school every Tuesday whereas with Dylan's current schedule of only attending Wed-Fri there (with Mon-Tue at AAS), he'll continue to miss it. Told them I am trying to put Dylan in AAS in the morning next year, which may entail his switching to other days in AAS. Eg. Ms Vasugi was mentioning that by working on big actions of handpainting on the easel, the kids can slowly progress to tabletop prewriting/ writing activities. I'll put Dylan on 5 day week for a month in St Gerard's come 19 Nov when AAS has school holiday.

Also, there's clearly wisdom to have Dylan do OT in St Gerard, rather than privately, as the issues worked on by OT can be passed to the teachers. Will follow up with Sheralyn to schedule perhaps fortnightly sessions.

One of the greatest take-away today is to have my concern that the RDI & ST objectives (trying to / not to elicit specific response) may conflict, resolved, through dialogue with Bimal & Vasu. In fact, Bimal thinks eg. objective of turntaking can be worked on even as I do echoe mic activity with Dylan. That the activity can be turned into a nice regulatory pattern, even if Dylan merely makes a sound, but not the same as I did.

Filling in the Gaps & Fever

Almost a month has gone by since the last blog. Hmmm...

Dylan had his speech therapy session on Wed 3 Oct and Mr Vasu gave a lot of "homework" on oral motor activities - to massage his facial muscles, brushing inside his cheeks & gums, biting block etc. He also recommends the use of echoe mic. Stage 1- hold mic to his mouth, he makes a sound, I immediately imitate the sound. Stage 2- I make a sound eg. "Ahhhh", then quickly hold to his mouth hoping he'll imitate. Well, after frequent practice with our helper & I, he's more consistently verbalising (though not the same sound but rather indistinct sounds) even with stage 2.

I was on course-Landmark Education Advanced Course, which I find amazing in how free and empowering life can be lived. But it does take me away from Dylan 3 full days (10am-12 midnite) Fri-Sun 5-7 Oct when I only saw him in the morning. Unfortunately for Dylan, even though Daddy was ready to take him swimming, it rained so it didn't happen.

Then the following Saturday we went for an ambitious tree top walk at McRitchie Reservoir which is 10km return. Dylan did pretty well, walking several kilometres, but encouragement & physical assistance to push him a bit wasn't enough after about 3km & I resorted to luring /bribing him with bits of sweets. When even that didn't work, it was time Dad carried him. Unfortunately for us, shortly after crossing the (one-way) tree top canopy bridge which Dylan clearly enjoyed, it started raining pretty heavily, and we only had 1 umbrella & no raincoat for Dylan.

Sick (hi fever, listless, no appetite, drft in & out of sleep day & night) for 7 days. Started with fever on Sat night, throwing up all lunch & dinner & milk 6 times that night. Even Sun morning, couldn't keep even juice.

Wednesday, just as I thought the worst is over, in the evening, the temp shot up again.

Thursday brought for blood test- thankfully it's not dengue.

Lost 2kg- temp dropped from 18 to 16 kg.

Finally, after drinking the lin yang herbal drink brewed by my mom mixed in his rice milk on Thur night, Dylan broke into profuse sweat past 2am & in the morning, fever's gone. Thank God!